Kinaxia Logistics hungry to snap up more haulage firms to fuel growth in 2018

Kinaxia Logistics is set to deliver “enormous growth” this year and acquire a number of hauliers in the first quarter of 2018, according to director Peter Fields.

Parent company Kinaxia has bought eight haulage companies since launching Kinaxia Logistics in 2012.

These include Bay Freight, William Kirk, NC Cammack and Sons, Foulger Transport, Lambert Brothers Haulage, Panic Transport, Maidens of Telford and Kinaxia’s latest acquisition, Mark Thompson Transport (pictured), which it purchased in the summer.

Speaking to MT following the publication of Kinaxia’s annual results, Fields, who founded the business with Graham Norfolk, said an additional £7.5m loan will allow the firm to “carry on purchasing good, profitable, growing companies”.

“We’re working on some deals but these will not happen this year,” he said. He expects to be able to announce “a number of new acquisitions” in the first quarter of next year.

Fields said there is “a pipeline of companies interested in joining us”.

He added Kinaxia’s strategy appealed to the owners of family firms looking for a succession plan, which would allow family companies to keep the name, their existing management structure and employees.

“We don’t mess with that model because, if it isn’t broken, why fix it?” said Fields. “We’re not about making redundancies to cut costs. We’re about improving productivity by providing updated infrastructure.

“We’ve spent a lot of time modernising, but management-wise everything about these companies has stayed the same,” he said.

Kinaxia’s annual results to 31 December 2016 show turnover up 15.7% to £50.2m (2015: £43.4m) with EBITDA rising 9% in the same period to £5.1m (2015: £4.7m).

Pre-tax profit fell to £538,846 (2015: £1m), which Field attributed to the cost of implementing new fleet management, compliance, training, recruitment, marketing, HR and finance systems.